So I watched both of the Straight Shootin' DVDs with Bill Watts and Jim Cornette last night. Great stuff as he gets the wrestling business probably better than any other human being. You also get a lot of insight into his views and such. If you don't like hearing people talk about their faith in God then skip the second one as he talks about that indepth.

1. Heels should never do really horrible acts of violence completely on purpose. When Hayes blinded the JYD it was accidental to a degree. You do this because if the heel did it on purpose the promotion would logically fire them.

2. The owner should never be a heel. Why is someone going to pay you money if you're such a bad guy?

3. The problem with a lot of guys today is they have their gimmick in mind too early. If you don't let it happen naturally and said gimmick fails you've got a young guy that doesn't know how to do anything else.

4. He hired a lot of black wrestlers because he felt it exposed the business that there were black superstars in every other sport but not in wrestling.

5. You can sell even the most simple of concepts if you present it right.

6. He hates squash matches.

7. He once had to fight his way out of a building after beating Bobo Brazil in the WWWF and then went and hid at a gas station.

8. While playing at Oklahoma the entire team walked out of a place because they wouldn't serve the black players on the team.

9. He took the mats away in WCW because people were actually getting hurt more by those than the cement.

10. Also in WCW he made top rope moves illegal to make top rope moves mean more and to be more spectacular.

I call bullshit on this one. Although it DOES make sense, the promotion would NOT fire them because it would let down the fans. They DID want to see the super heels get their asses kicked. The Sheik is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) heel in wrestling histroy, he never did anything on accident.

agreed 100%

Great point from ol Watts.

.....or because he didn't want them to go elsewhere and become stars. Watts wasn't the first promotor to push black wrestlers.

Yep. But you have to put in the effort as well.

You can tell by watching the Mid South TV shows from back in the day. The squash matches where always about 10 minutes.

Well, Southerners weren't too welcome in NYC in that day in age.

coughbullshitcough

Funny, I thought it was because they were doing ANYTHING to cut costs.

Once again.....BULLSHIT. That's when Watts was in idiot mode.

Actually this was in Washington DC when it happened.

Actually Cornette has backed him up on this one. He did it at the time because too many guys were coming off of the top rope and it was killing the importance of the mat. With the mats one of his friends hit it wrong and messed his ankle up really badly. Plus Watts felt it exposed the business. Also for WCW he was pissed when they did the Tower of Terror thing because the trailer cost like 80k to due and the company was losing something like 8 million a year when he showed up.

Just a few more things for now:

11. He got into wrestling because he saw Wahoo McDaniel cashing a huge check from wrestling one match.

12. He fired guys for getting into and then losing a bar fight. He didn't encourage it but he felt it was business exposing for them to get their ass handed to them.

13. He wanted the guys to dress a certain way. He got pissed at Jimmy Garvin because he was doing a gimmick where he was well dressed on tv and then would walk around town with a tank top, shorts and flip flops.

14. He had to invent new fines because Buddy Landell was such a problem.

15. He brings up the UFC and MMA in general several times on both DVDs. If I had to guess he seems to think that's the future of the business.

16. Added to No. 1. He said it wasn't logically because his company would get sued if the heels really did something so horrible like Hayes blinding the JYD. If it was somewhat accidental they could play it off as being an accident while keeping their heat and then the company wasn't playing as much of a part.

Fair enough. Still it's a North/South thing.

I doubt the importance of the mat deal, considering during that time there was better mat work in WCW than there was anywhere in the US. I agree with the Tower of Terror thing though.

He's right on this one. At the time, that would expose the business in the worst way possible.

Once again, I agree....it exposes the business.

This didn't surprise me at ALL.

I see where he's coming from here and it proves that Watts still understands audiences in wrestling. UFC/Pride have become something I've enjoyed watching more on PPV than anything the WWE has done in a while.....and I've been a wrestling fan for about 20 years.

I see where he's coming from here, but it's still a bit incorrect. Even if I got hurt at work and it's an accident, it's still on the companies dollar. But he does have a point though.